Undeterred by its disastrous forays into the Internet, Starbucks announced yesterday it will make high speed wireless ‘Net connections available in its coffee shops.

But there are strings attached.

Starbucks customers will soon be able to pull up their corporate e-mail while they wait for their triple-double choccachinos and surf the Web from comfy chairs. But to do so, they will have to be subscribers to the MobileStar wireless data network.

MobileStar, whose service costs around $30 a month, is attempting to extend its reach to Main Street to compete with other wireless ISPs such as Metricom, whose gray Ricochet modems function in 10 major U.S. cities.

MobileStar is currently available in American Airlines’ Admiral lounges. Starbucks Senior VP of New Ventures Darren Huston distanced his new “New Ventures” unit from the old Starbucks-X unit, which declared in 1999 that the company was a dot-com and baffled analysts by announcing it would sell furniture. “This is the antithesis of our previous strategy,” he told The Post. “We’re making no equity investment in MobileStar.”

In November, Starbucks announced it had earned a miserable $1.5 million in its fiscal fourth quarter after a charge for its investments in four Internet companies wiped out most of its profit. The charge of $42.3 million came from investments in four ‘Net money-losers: Living.com, Kozmo.com Inc., Cooking.com and Talk City Inc.

Huston added that the benefit of the in-store system was that the network would immediately know which store the customer was in and be able to target him or her with local listings. “They’ll even be able to order a drink from the mobile phone.”

The system will be accessible for users of laptops with wireless LAN (Local Area Network) cards, handhelds using Microsoft Pocket PC software and “smart” cell phones. The system will link up to Microsoft’s vast network of content sites.

“It’s a bullseye for hackers,” said Jupiter analyst Seamus McAteer. “Microsoft and Starbucks have many enemies in common,” he said, referring to the anti-globalization movement which received widespread attention when protesters kicked in the windows of Starbucks stores in Seattle last year.

McAteer said that it was a win for MobileStar, which will have Microsoft’s marketing muscle on its side.

Details of when the service will be fully implemented were kept vague by all three companies.

“This one of a kind national wireless broadband network gives Starbucks a unique position in the landscape of retailers,” said Howard Schultz, chairman and chief global strategist at Starbucks.

The deal’s a distribution play by Microsoft for the Microsoft Network, its ISP, which has 4 million paying members. Microsoft has opened “up to 7,000 store-in-a-store” MSN stalls in Radio Shacks and is trying to compete with the “AOLAnywhere” strategy.

MSN spokeswoman Sarah Lefko said the company was targeting 70 percent of Starbucks stores but would start in the late spring with “a couple.”

Starbucks closed at up $1.19 at $43.25. Microsoft closed up $4.56 at $47.94.